A Midsummer Night's Dream (MAXNotes Literature Guides)
By Gail Rae
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A Midsummer Night's Dream (MAXNotes Literature Guides) - Gail Rae
Goodfellow
SECTION ONE
Introduction
The Life and Work of William Shakespeare
The details of William Shakespeare’s life are sketchy, mostly mere surmise based upon court or other clerical records. His parents, John and Mary (Arden), were married about 1557; she was of the landed gentry, and he was a yeoman—a glover and commodities merchant. By 1568, John had risen through the ranks of town government and held the position of high bailiff, which was a position similar to a mayor. William, the eldest son and the third of eight children, was born in 1564, probably on April 23, several days before his baptism on April 26 in Stratford-upon-Avon. Shakespeare is also believed to have died on the same date—April 23—in 1616.
It is believed that William attended the local grammar school in Stratford where his parents lived, and that he studied primarily Latin, rhetoric, logic, and literature. Shakespeare probably left school at age 15, which was the norm, to take a job, especially since this was the period of his father’s financial difficulty. At age 18 (1582), William married Anne Hathaway, a local farmer’s daughter who was eight years his senior. Their first daughter (Susanna) was born six months later (1583), and twins, Judith and Hamnet, were born in 1585.
Shakespeare’s life can be divided into three periods: the first 20 years in Stratford, which include his schooling, early marriage, and fatherhood; the next 25 years as an actor and playwright in London; and the last five in retirement in Stratford where he enjoyed the moderate wealth gained from his theatrical successes. The years linking the first two periods are marked by a lack of information about Shakespeare, and are often referred to as the dark years.
At some point during the dark years,
Shakespeare began his career with a London theatrical company, perhaps in 1589, for he was already an actor and playwright of some note by 1592. Shakespeare apparently wrote and acted for numerous theatrical companies, including Pembroke’s Men, and Strange’s Men, which later became the Chamberlain’s Men, with whom he remained for the rest of his career.
In 1592, the Plague closed the theaters for about two years, and Shakespeare turned to writing book-length narrative poetry. Most notable were Venus and Adonis
and The Rape of Lucrece
, both of which were dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, whom scholars accept as Shakespeare’s friend and benefactor despite a lack of documentation. During this same period, Shakespeare was writing his sonnets, which are more likely signs of the time’s fashion rather than actual love poems detailing any particular relationship. He returned to playwriting when theaters reopened in 1594, and did not continue to write poetry. His sonnets were published without his consent in 1609, shortly before his retirement.
Amid all of his success, Shakespeare suffered the loss of his only son, Hamnet, who died in 1596 at the age of 11. But Shakespeare’s career continued unabated, and in London in 1599, he became one of the partners in the new Globe Theater, which was built by the Chamberlain’s Men.
Shakespeare wrote very little after 1612, which was the year he completed Henry VIII. It was during a performance of this play in 1613 that the Globe caught fire and burned to the ground. Sometime between 1610 and 1613, Shakespeare returned to Stratford, where he owned a large house and property, to spend his remaining years with his family.
William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, and was buried two days later in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, where he had been baptized exactly 52 years earlier. His literary legacy included 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and five major poems.
Incredibly, most of Shakespeare’s plays had never been published in anything except pamphlet form, and were simply extant as acting scripts stored at the Globe. Theater scripts were not regarded as literary works of art, but only the basis for the performance. Plays were simply a popular form of entertainment for all layers of society in Shakespeare’s time. Only the efforts of two of Shakespeare’s company, John Heminges and Henry Condell, preserved his 36 plays (minus Pericles, the thirty-seventh).
The Theater of William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s theater was very different from today’s in both form and management. Actors were considered vagabonds until The Act of 1572, which declared acting a legitimate profession PROVIDING the player (actor) was under the patronage of a peer of the realm. In 1576, the first public playhouse, The Theater, was built in London. It was during this time that the acrobatic, farcical work done by the wandering troupes of actors in the yards of inns began to transform itself into actors performing in plays. Now there were companies,
groups of eight to ten men who invested their capital in a common stock of plays (and the apparel necessary to stage them) and shared the profits in proportion to the capital each invested. Periodically, plays (which were considered part of the company’s stock) were sold to raise capital; A Midsummer Night’s Dream was offered to publishers, along with The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado about Nothing, and Henry IV in 1600 by Lord Chamberlin’s Men in an attempt to raise capital to build the Globe. The company also had two or three boy apprentices trained for the female parts since women did not act. There might also be novices or old timers with no capital to invest who were hired for minor parts (as Shakespeare was initially).
The resident dramatist wrote plays meant to display the strong points of the lead actors, keeping the acting skills of the other players in mind since that was what was going to show a profit for the company. The actors had almost absolute control over what was written for them by the dramatist commissioned by the company (which then owned the play), the resident dramatist, or through their own updating of plays they already owned. A different play was presented each afternoon of the week, with a new one introduced every two weeks or so. Summer was traditionally for touring, spring and autumn were for the local London theater, and winter was for rehearsals, with the exception of Christmas when a play was presented to the Queen.
The theater itself, specifically the Globe, was an open-air structure with an internal